page_title: Andranik
section_title: Russian Revolution and Turkish reoccupation
hierarchical_section_title: Andranik / World War I / Russian Revolution and Turkish reoccupation
caption_attribution_description: English: The Caucasus Front in September 1917, just before the October Revolution source: Yerevan State University Armenian Studies Institute
context_page_description: Andranik Ozanian, commonly known as Andranik was an Armenian military commander and statesman, the best known fedayi and a key figure of the Armenian national liberation movement. From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, he was one of the main Armenian leaders of military efforts for the independence of Armenia.
  He became active in an armed struggle against the Ottoman government and Kurdish irregulars in the late 1880s. Andranik joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party and, along with other fedayi, sought to defend the Armenian peasantry living in their ancestral homeland, an area known as Western Armenia—at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. His revolutionary activities ceased and he left the Ottoman Empire after the unsuccessful uprising in Sasun in 1904. In 1907, Andranik left Dashnaktustyun because he disapproved of its cooperation with the Young Turks, a party which years later perpetrated the Armenian Genocide. Between 1912 and 1913, together with Garegin Nzhdeh, Andranik led a few hundred Armenian volunteers within the Bulgarian army against the Ottomans during the First Balkan War.
context_section_description: The February Revolution was positively accepted by the Armenians because it ended the autocratic rule of Nicholas II. The Special Transcaucasian Committee (known as OZAKOM) was set up in the South Caucasus by the Russian Provisional Government. In April 1917, Andranik initiated the publication of the newspaper Hayastan (Armenia) in Tiflis. Vahan Totovents became the editor of this non-partisan, Ottoman Armenian-orientated newspaper. Until December 1917, Andranik remained in the South Caucasus where he sought to help the Armenian refugees from the Ottoman Empire in their search for basic needs. The provisional government decree of 9 May 1917 put Turkish Armenia under civil administration, with Armenians holding key positions. About 150,000 local Armenians began to rebuild devastated Turkish Armenia; however the Russian army units gradually disintegrated and many soldiers deserted and returned to Russia.
  After the 1917 October Revolution, the chaotic retreat of Russian troops from Western Armenia escalated. Bolshevik Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Erzincan on 5 December 1917, ending the hostilities. The Soviet Russian government formally acknowledged the right of self-determination of the Ottoman Armenians in January 1918, but on 3 March 1918, Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, ceding Western Armenia and large areas in Eastern Europe to concentrate its forces against the Whites in the Russian Civil War.
  In December 1917, because the Russian divisions were deserting the region en masse, the Russian command authorized the formation of the Armenian Army Corps under the Transcaucasian Commissariat. Under the command of General Nazarbekian, the Corps was positioned in the front line from Van to Erzincan—a city of around about 20,000 people. Two of the Corps' three divisions were made up of Russian Armenians, while Andranik commanded the Turkish (Western) Armenian division. The Georgian forces patrolled the area between Erzincan and the Black Sea. Hovannisian states that the only "several thousand men now defended a 300-mile front formerly secured by a half million Russian regulars". Since December 1917, Andranik commanded the Armenian forces in Erzurum. In January 1918, he was appointed commander of the Western Armenian division of the Armenian Army Corps and given the rank of major-general by the Caucasus Front command. Andranik was unable to defend Erzurum for long and the outnumbering Turks captured the city on 12 March 1918, forcing the Armenians to evacuate.
  While the Transcaucasian delegation and the Turks were holding a conference in Trebizond, through March and April the Turkish forces, according to Walker, "overran the temporary establishment of Armenian rule in Turkish Armenia, extinguishing the hope so recently raised". Hovannisian wrote, "the battle for Turkish Armenia had been quickly decided; the struggle for Russian Armenia was now at hand". After the Turks captured Erzurum, the largest city in Turkish Armenia, Andranik retreated through Kars, passed through Alexandropol and Jalaloghly, and arrived in Dsegh by 18 May. By early April 1918, the Turkish forces had reached the pre-war international borders. Andranik and his unit in Dsegh were not able to take part in the battles of Sardarabad, Abaran and Karakilisa.
caption: The greatest extent of the Russian occupation of Turkish Armenia during World War I, September 1917. The area was reoccupied by the Turks between February and April 1918.
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